Artist Talk • Ukraine Every Day with Xu Weixin

Artist Xu Weixin has been working on his art project “Ukraine Every Day” since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Xu has completed almost 700 works using an iPad application. The portfolio includes portraits of soldiers, political figures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as scenes of the war. These images give voice to the artist’s hope for justice, peace, and resolution and his solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

Xu Weixin was born in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, in 1958, and now lives and works in New York and Beijing. He received a BA from the Xi’an Academy of Arts and an MFA from the Zhejiang Academy of Arts. Xu has combined his interest in universal human conditions with a stark Realist style that is deeply rooted in China’s modern art history. His most recent works are single-person portrait series, whose subjects share the same historic time or environment, merging personal and collective narratives. Xu Weixin’s critically acclaimed works have been exhibited and collected by public institutions and private collections in China. Solo exhibitions include Song of Workers (Shanghai Art Museum, 2007), Chinese Historical Figures: 1966-1976（Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2007), and China Image: Portrait in Circulation (Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 2011). He is currently a professor of painting and the former executive dean of the School of Arts, Renmin University, Beijing. In 2016, Xu had his first major solo exhibition in USA at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).

The event is sponsored by the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists, the Carolina Asia Center, and the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies.